As much as Eddie Jones’s team selection to face Japan on Saturday reveals about how he wants England to play, how he wants to inject pace into a side that spluttered along in the low gears last weekend, it also shows he does not consider his job to be on the line. Defeat would be a sixth Test loss of the year and turn the pressure up a couple more notches but Jones would never leave a fit Manu Tuilagi on the bench for a match England have to win, however much his workload must be managed.
If Jones is not weighed down by a fear of failure, however, the same cannot be said of his players. The post-match message after last Sunday’s defeat by Argentina was clear: individual mistakes rather than underlying structural issues were to blame; cohesion always takes time when players are coming from so many different clubs. But as the week has worn on, there has been a willingness to acknowledge a fear of making mistakes has been holding England back.
